Grade 4 Mini Me’s (5×5)
I love starting the year with self portrait lessons. It’s a great way to get to know your students, new and old.
Sometime ago while searching for ideas on Google, I came across an image where there were many self portraits made in every color of the rainbow and displayed in a hallway. I loved the idea and decided that this would be a great school wide lesson. I’ve named it the Mini Me Rainbow Mural!
I cut out 5×5 squares for each student and assigned a specific color for each grade level. I challenged the students with the following: Draw a mini border on your mini paper and then draw your mini me! The super challenge is to color in your mini me using one color! What a great way to throw in a bit of color theory.
Does this sound like a fun project ? Absolutely!
Do a quick refresher on how to draw a head, ears, neck and shoulder and it doesn’t hurt to talk about the shape of the eyes, nose and lips so their mini me’s look like themselves. I didn’t spend too much time on this as I will review this in depth later on. Give out mirrors and let the fun begin. Ask your kids how can they produce different ‘shades’ using one colored pencil. Once they all agree that depending how hard or soft you color in, prove the theory on a scrap piece of paper. You will hear oo’s and aah’s when they see all the shades that can be made!
Send them off and let them explore and enjoy the mini ME moment. With the grade six’s, I gave out the base color (yellow), white and black paint and they had to make their own shades and tints.
I will post a picture of the finished mural. In the meantime, find more self-portrait lesson ideas here.
Don’t these minis look great?
Dana, Grade 7
My son Sebey, Gr 3
Shereen, Gr 6
Grade 3
Psst…
Art Lessons for Kids is on Facebook and we are GROWING. Hit the ”Like” button to show your LOVE and join the conversation. You can also follow my adventures on Twitter (@Ms_Alejandra) or see what I am pinning over at Pinterest.
Sign up today for The Happy Whole Teacher messages and get some lovin’ pep talks to keep you happy, balanced, energised and inspired. Click on the image below to join for FREE. I would love to have you in my tribe.
Become whole again and change your life. Let me show you how.
ART LESSONS FOR KIDS 
This is a great lesson. I did this with the 2 schools that I teach at and the murals were fantastic. The way I did it was I gave each child, staff and faculty member a small 3×3 piece of oaktag or cardstock. Everyone drew a self-portrait and I put them together to create a mural of our school. I had about 95% participation from the whole entire school (some people forgot to give me their portraits.) It came out fantastic! I can send you a photo if you’re interested.
It’s a fun project isn’t it? I think I will include the teachers, thanks for that idea. I would love to see a photo. Do you mind if I share it on my blog so others might be inspired? Thanks Christina! happy teaching. 🙂
How did you put them together?
It really depends on you how you want to put these together. Since these were color coded by grade level then they could spiral around, go from lightest color to darkest or vice-versa or follow the color spectrum.
I was wondering a little more about if you attached them to each other, or just separately mounted each of them for display purposes. 🙂
Absolutely…i’ll send you a photo
http://www.edline.net/GroupHome.page
Click on the We are Wood End link and there is a sample of the unfinished mural…I have since finished it and have not put up a final image. I did this project last year.
I can’t see an image without having to sign up to the service. If you send me an image I promise to link it back to your site and your project. Thanks Christina! 🙂
how do I send you an image? is there an email address I can find on your site? i’m not that brilliant when it comes to technology….
Send it to ale(dot)srtroom(at)gmail(dot)com–Can’t wait to see it! Thanks.
i tried emailing you, but failed…i received an email back saying that my message is undeliverable bc the account doesn’t exist?
But I have a solution for you….try this link:
http://wesbmsart.blogspot.com/2010/10/we-are-wood-end.html
I posted some info about our mural being moved and put up a picture as well….hopefully that works!
Thanks Christina! I have placed a link to your blog in the post. You are awesome for sharing! 🙂
I really like the way these turned out. I like the idea of the monochromatic pictures. We may have to do this one.
I love these portraits! I tucked this idea away and just now implemented it for our spring Elementary Fine Arts Gala. I just LOVE the finished product! Thank you for posting this project.
http://artabroad.blogspot.com/2011/05/were-colorful-bunch.html